Are the two I'm most sure of. They're just brilliant. Rashad's record is like nothing else around, it's too much fun and ballances that bangin' good time vibe with some seriously outthere experimental shit. It sounds like this decade summed up already.

Kuedo just hit me right. Its got that bitter sweet heartbreaking vibe someone like Burial has but its a whole diffrent pallet of sounds. It both looks forward and back all at once by sounding like a sci-fi soundtrack for a film that hasn't found yet from the 80s/90s and by taking cues from really modern sounds like juke/footwork like the above album and rappid fire trap hip-hop. It's ace.

I could prob make a case for a few more...

Actress - Splazsh
Guido - Anidea

Actress' album is just a wicked listen it's fun but experimental, it draws you in as much as it pushes you back, some of it bangs some of it is really obscure. Its really intruiging. No one really does it like Actress and you can't say that about many people. It depends on my mood more than anything if its 10/10 or not.

Guido's is an album I play a lot which is prob why its verging on a 10/10 for me, again no one really sounds like him even though you can hear some influence or contempories with a simular vibe going on. Joker, Gemmy, Terror Danjah but none of them have made an album as solid yet and Guido just has a hole other zen like vibe to him than those lot. Simular sound pallet to people like Timberland, that early 00s R&B and computer games so its another one that sounds like it could only happen this decade from kids growing up with all that. I dunno its just wicked.

Maybe...

Richard Skelton – Landings

Just because its bliss, really deep and organic. The strings the arrangments are so dense and draw you in so much. Its comforting yet pretty intense all at once.

Maybe...

V/A - Shangaan Electro: New Wave Dance Music From South Africa

Nothing sounds like this shit, it's insane hyperactive electronica from the heart of Africa that is too much fun. But its a comp so does it count?

Black Swan - In 8 Movements
Deathspell Omega - Paracletus
Emeralds - Does it Look Like I'm Here
Gayngs - Relayted
Gonjasufi - Sufi & a Killer
Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will
Sam Amidon - I See the Sign
Twin Shadow - Forget
Altar of Plagues - Mammal
Ash Borer - Ash Borer
Cold Cave - Cherish The Light Years
Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges
David Thomas Broughton - Outbreeding
Der Blutharsch And The Infinite Church Of The Leading Hand + Aluk Todolo - A Collaboration
Holy Other - With You EP
How to Dress Well - Just Once EP
James Vincent McMorrow - Early In The Morning
Leyland Kirby - Eager to Tear Apart the Stars
Liturgy - Aesthetica
Peaking Lights - 936
Run DMT - Dreams
Ssalvia - Thought has Wings
The Oh Sees - Carrion Crawler/The Dream
Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
A Winged Victory for the Sullen - A Winged Victory for the Sullen
Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory
How to Dress Well - Total Loss
Laplux - Some Other Time EP
Menace Ruine - Alight in Ashes
Motion Sickness of Time Travel - Motion Sickness of Time Travel
Old Apparatus' - Sullen Tone Trilogy
The Pre New - Music For People Who Hate Themselves
Raime - Quarter Turns Over a Living Line
Ty Segall & White Fence - Hair
Foals - Holy Fire

These are all definite 9's, some may even be 10's - these one's for certain. So, if that list is a bit absurd, these would be my definitive choices: Emeralds, Twin Shadow, Peaking Lights, Cold Cave, Ssalvia and How to Dress Well

because its pure fun.i know it would be a very difficult LP to talk about in hushed reverence/pseudo intellectual babble but as far as party like hell and get drunk with you're friends its an absolute winner!!a perfect specimen of dumb garage rock at its very best.

Out of those the only one I would give 10/10 to without hesitation would be Big Boi, but I think KWJAZ deserves it too purely on the basis that it sounds like nothing I've ever heard before and completely blew me away.

Jimmy sums up Actress better than I ever could a couple of posts above and it seems we only differ on which album of his we like the best. Not sure whether it's a straight 10, but it's about as close as you can get.

Only other album from 2010 to now that I would consider giving a perfect score to is a James Ferraro record that he released under the alias Grippers Nother Onesers called, At Slimer Beach. It's just totally amazing. Think this might be cheating though cos it's basically a vinyl reissue of a tape that came in in 2005. The audio is a bit different on the vinyl tho' so I'm counting it.

All his albums are quality. I just like Splazsh more than RIP its just more fun on the whole and one I would go back to more. But then Hazzyville is killer too and thats darker than RIP. You just can't go much wrong with any Actress tbh and he's prob got another on the way this year n'all.

When you're reviewing a record in a formal, legit kinda way you really have to put your asshole-critic hat on. And vice-versa.

You listen to the same record over and over again and it's easy to start thinking "this is the greatest/worst thing ever!" So you have to be mindful of 'the grand scheme of things' before committing to a score.

yeah 70's art rock definitely an antecedent and you're right to invoke Soft Machine (the post-Ayers Third has my favourite song ever on it, Moon In June), but this is as much pastoral neo-classical as it is rock, maybe shades of Vaughan Williams and the like

Cardiacs and associated side-projects are so far ahead of everything else I've ever heard it's scary, you'll be passing a point of no return whether you like it or not

Tl;dr: The arty extremity of Paralytic Stalks was (at least partly) provoked by his sort of breakdown after Pitchfork panned False Priest; he decided to make a record so personal and artistically rich that he wouldn’t need to heedwhat everyone else thought.

Sing To God, The Seaside and On Land And In The Sea are all on Youtube in full - listen in roughly that order, I say. Although you'll probably just listen to STG on repeat for a year. I pretty much did.

...Oshin is an interesting one, in that it is a record that adds up to far more than the sum of its parts. individually, those tracks are all great little guitar numbers, but when put together they form a perfect whole, creating the model concept for what a LP truly means to me: a bands' sound wholly explored and brilliantly defined.

it lags a bit at the end tbh.
whenever i join in these discussions i like to chip in with a few albums that work on pure emotion rather than the usual 10/10's statement albums(the seer for instance)that usually work on a more cerebral/"art" level and always gain severe traction in the "classic" stakes.its a futile task and generally people think i'm verging on stupidity but sometimes you just gotta try and place some FUN albums in the discourse.

I really like it. Sometimes and How Long Have You Known? are great tracks. Like, really, really good songs. And there are some beautiful sounding guitars on it. And yeah it's cohesive, but each song should be able to stand on its own. When half the album is completely unattractive to listen to on its lonesome, then it's just not a good enough song.

Turn on the Bright Lights will forever be the benchmark for how amazing songs can still make an equally cohesive record.

That to me is one of its strengths - its subtle variations on that theme, which make themselves more apparent after repeat listens. Plus, as sunstroke_house has said on here before, it just nails that sound so well.

Another example of this on my list is Flockaveli - relatively one-dimensional, but that's sort of the point. Its merit lies in its focus. Unlike XXX which covers loads of sonic territory.

also: I've noticed there's a tendency in these discussions for people to just list albums that are 'expansive', for want of a better word. see: Swans / Kanye West / Fucked Up / Sufjan Stevens / Joanna Newsom / Janelle Monae. there is room for that stuff for sure, and I really like some of those albums, but I do wonder if people are just getting overexcited by the idea of the record, rather than how well it has been executed. it's kind of interesting that, historically, indie rock has been seen as an alternative to big, stadium baiting rock music but increasingly people are heading more towards hoary Bruce Springsteen style 'bigness'.

It's a really recent thing, though, this idea that things need to be 'epic'. If you ask people what their favourite records not released in the past 4 years were they wouldn't be dishing out Pink Floyd and Wagner. The 'indie rock canon', if such a thing exists, is stuff like Nirvana, Belle & Sebastian, Pixies, The Smiths, Wu Tang Clan, Can and so on where the focus is, if you will, being big in a small way. Even The Knife, who built their house on classy 3 minute pop songs have returned with an album of 20 minute maximalist bangers. I just find it weird that, of all people, the indie community has lapped up the relentless Dubai-ification of the world so much and wonder what the reasons for that are.

I mean of those listed the only one I love is Fucked Up, but the other albums I've listen mainly fall under a similar category - especially Kendrick and Titus Andronicus

I've always been a sucker for overblown ambitious stuff so I dunno

plus actually even in classic indie rawk there's some 'big' albums that were pretty well received - Daydream Nation, Wowee Zowee (maybe), I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, most Modest Mouse, Perfect From Now On, and looking further back Zen Arcade, Double Nickels on the Dime, etc, etc

not heard most of those albums to be honest. though I don't see something like Double Nickels On The Dime as having this same epic quality I'm trying to talk about, most of the songs are pretty simple and are mostly under 2 minutes long.

i'm not sure if it's slightly related but i'm much more inclined to regard EPs as 10/10 records rather than albums these days. of course you could say 'well that's easier for obvious reasons', but there's a lot to be said for brevity

to something like music. a waste of mental effort, and somewhat reductive. think about it, how bizarre to wring one's hands over the precise measure of an album's quality - especially relative to other records.

But I was trying to highlight the fact that it is largely harmless so long as it doesn't overshadow the music itself? Essentially for me it is a form of cataloging, I keep lists of my favourite albums of a year on iTunes, and this is my go to place when I'm looking for something to listen to.

but, if by expansive you mean long, your argument isn't helped by the fact that 2 of the Darren Hayman releases that you mentioned (January Songs and The Violence) could both also be considered expansive!

you don't compare it and say is it better than Boxer or Alligator. Otherwise nothing is ever a 10/10 except the one album you hold most dear over everything elese you own.

Is it a practically perfect record, sustained over the length of the album? Does it contain songs like great big trees you feel you've known all your life and lovely small saplings that also make your eyes twinkle? Yes

Aside from that - cos it's irrelevant to my argument - I listen to High Violet more than the 2 you mentioned. Maybe it's me, but he gets into my head totally on High Violet, while the other two he only partially got in it, and it was more a case of 'this sounds fun'.

I'd only go with Two Dancers, maybe The Drift and Bisch Bosch as well. There's a few that come bloody close - Skeletal Lamping, Untrue, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, The Seer and Tender Buttons - but are they 10/10? Hmmm.

But just not quite for me. It's utterly brilliant in parts but diesn't quite tie together perfectly. Until The Quiet Comes does...but that lacks the ambitious side. He definitely has a 10/10 album in him though.

Destroyer - Kaputt, completely perfect wouldn't change anything, love the love for this in the thread
Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place, just beautiful
Frank Ocean - Channel Orange, an absolute stonewall classic
How to Dress Well - Total Loss, Heartbreaking it just gets me in the guts

I bet there would have been a 500+ reply thread about when the millenium changed!

The point is a perfectly valid one.

As we measure years in AD - Anno Domini - The Year of our Lord - there was no year 0. Christ's birth was in 1AD. Therefore the first decade was 1AD-11AD. Unless you sneak in a 9 year decade somewhere along the way that means that each decade (and each millenium) starts with a 1.

My list started as the bottom list, of albums that have come out in this frame of a decade. Then, reviewing the scope of the last 10 years, I felt it fit to exclude those albums, for the sake of keeping it to a modest five albums. The only reason Age of Adz and High Violet are included in both lists is because they are too, too, too perfect to ignore. Age of Adz may be my favorite of most decades.